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Hey man, that means a lot.. I'm actually flattered a few of you like my suit.But I couldn't have done it without the current and previous members trials and errors. and the explosion of discoveries on parts used on the actual costume prop. Making it easy to have an accurate suit.Again thx!

Hey BGH,
I was thinking about that too... I'm not sure how to achieve the flair correctly, would you have any suggestions? I was planing to slightly heat the helmet a bit and making the T-visor flair out a bit near the bottom.

BGHunter said:

Nice ESB , I see youve gone the cloud city style shoulder studs ,
are you going to try give the GMH a bit more flair, as it seems to have on cloud city?

First b4 any one says it yes they are all the same but at certin points , like cloud city there is definently more flair,
The flair on cloud city is most likely caused by the chin strap being tyed up tightly , the ESB helmet is of a different construction than the other helmets ,
for one the used mesh fiberglass mating , as apposed to chopped weave mating which the others all have, and it was layedcalot thinner than the other helmets so it would be more flexible , Hence probley why it has all the stress fractures all over it , any way my point being is that the chin strap being tighted would be enough to cause the flair ,
if you wanted to try and achieve this look you could heat it mostly around the brow line and push the back in a bit, and best bet is to do it b4 cutting the T section out ,
you only want a slightly flair as it is deceptive ,

As for Rafal its the back you wanty to push in if you see the shots were Fett is talking to Vader you can see tha back is pushed in and the front is quite peaked

Try it see what happens ,You need a head in the helmet for this to happen but it will flair, because the chinstraps are bolted in at the top of the ears at brow line when there pulled tight and down the will bow out , if the chin strap was atached to the lower ear bolt as aposed to the higher one then it would pull in , , if that make sense
It not lense distortion not when he is on cloud city
and the bottom of the t visor is further appart from the helmet pulling out as the visor was not glued in to place there would be some play to the T gap
There is no way this is due to lense distortion , Yes in some cases it is but it cant apply to the cloud city sence

How ever unless you were there its all speculation , as I said these are my thoughts not fact

I would say you are all correct to some extent. There is no doubt whatsoever that there was considerably more flare in that helmet at one time. However, I do not think that the mandibles are necessarily wider at the bottom. Nor do I think the appearance of it is necessarily due to camera perspective issues. There is also no doubt that the helmet is very flexible - if not flimsy. It's very thin. But, I don't think that the pronounced flare was strictly due to the chin strap being tight. I'd actually contend thT pulling the chin strap too tight would actually narrow the helmet a bit when viewed from the front. I'll explain my views on what happened to the flare later this morning. I'll have to draw some rudimentary pictures to explain all these oddities as I see them. It's enough right now to say I'd come to the conclusion quite some time ago that camera perspective is NOT the main culprit.

I just lost about twenty minutes of work on a post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have to restart it later. Anyhow, the ESB mandibles do in fact widen out but it's not enough to account for the flare. The crack is the ultimate culprit, I'm sure of it! I don't see the repair anywhere in the ESB set shots. That's not to say it wasn't cracked then, but if it was it was repaired properly. I think it was recracked at a later date and that rather than push the cracked area flush before bonding it they just got lazy and bonded it as it sat... with a big ledge. Hence, the mustard ledge crack. I'll have to redo my post later... I had photos in and everything ready. My IE crashed. I don't have time to redo it right now. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!

yeh well looking at the rotj and esb lids more in depth just now the ESB is parallel where the ROTJ is pinched more at the bottom making it less "flared"

Yes, but note how the PP2 has neither of those features and the flare is very subdued on that helmet. James is right. The helmet in the ESB photos is pushed together front to back. The side view shots on the Executor set show that the front and back of the helmet are parallel... if not beyond. They appear to be closer at the bottom than they are higher up. This WILL result in the sideways flare being pronounced.